5-22-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE WAY: PART II

    According to an Associated Press article in last Thursday’s Meadville Tribune, the second coming of Christ was supposed to occur on Saturday, the 21^st of May.  That particular date was calculated by a retired civil engineer by the name of Harold Camping. For those of you keeping score, that would have been yesterday. Now if Christ did in fact return yesterday, then there are a lot of us who’ve been left behind. 

    When I first read the article, I thought, “Gosh, I may not have to write a sermon this week.” I decided to write one anyway just in case this Harold Camping fellow was wrong.  Now I’m not making light of the second coming of Jesus Christ.  It’s just that Jesus himself said, “Of that day and hour no one knows, not the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  So let’s not worry about the end of the world today.  Let’s worry instead about the way we live in the world we have.       

    Speaking of living in the world we have, let me say this: The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life.  As I said last week that’s a line quite similar to one Eugene Peterson uses in his book, The Jesus Way. What Peterson actually says is, “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life,” but the essential meaning of those two statements is about the same.  As we noted last week, the Jesus truth is not enough in and of itself to attain the Jesus life.  Jesus calls us to follow the Jesus way as well.  As Jesus himself put it in the passage we read from the gospel according to John, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father…but by me.”  Could it be that Jesus is actually calling us to live the faith we say we believe?  Perhaps the question thus becomes, “What is the Jesus way, and how do we go about following it?”

    Along those lines, I want you to consider a famous poem written by a man named Robert Frost.  It was first published in 1916 in a collection of poetry called Mountain Interval.  The name of the poem is, “The Road Not Taken.”  Perhaps you’ve heard of it.  Listen closely to the words just the same.

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth.

 

            Then took the other, as just as fair,

            And having perhaps the better claim,

            Because it was grassy and wanted wear,

            Though as for that the passing there

            Had worn them really about the same.

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

            I shall be telling this with a sigh

            Somewhere ages and ages hence:

            Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –

            I took the one less travelled by,

            And that has made all the difference.

    Robert Frost came to the proverbial fork in the road.  There, he found he had a choice to make.  He made his choice, and then he had to live with it.  And in the long run, he came to sense that the path he picked ultimately made all the difference.  Ladies and gentlemen, we come to forks in the road every day, and we have choices to make as well.   

    For example, imagine you’re taking an algebra test.  Do you trust in your ability to retain the data you have studied, or do you sneak a peek at the paper of someone who does better in the lass than you?  Or, imagine you’re working on a major business deal.  A person who works below you comes up with an idea that is sure to make the transaction a huge success.  Do you jump on the idea and claim it as your own, or do you give credit where credit is due and sacrifice a big promotion?  Or, imagine you’ve been married for many, many years.  Relationships tend to go through peaks and valleys, and you feel like you’re in a valley.  Then someone you meet seems to take a profound interest in you.  It’s flattering, it’s gratifying…it’s exciting.  Do you stick to your marriage vows, or do you give in to your baser impulses? Ah, the stakes seem to get higher the older we get, do they not?

    The choices we make do matter.  As C.S. Lewis once put it, “With every choice we make we are turning the central part of ourselves – the part that chooses – into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.”  Don’t think for a moment that the choices we make don’t matter.  They do matter.  They matter a great deal.

    Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by…and that has made all the difference.  We all come to the proverbial fork in the road, and we all have choices to make.  The choices we make at the fork in the road make all the difference in this world…as well as in the world to come.

    The Psalmist was well aware of that fact in the passage Bill read from the book of Psalms a moment ago.  He wrote, “Blessed is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on God’s law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.  The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.  Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the Lord knows the way of the righteous…but the way of the wicked will perish.”

    The Psalmist is saying that those who choose to abide by the way of God will prosper in the long run. Those who choose not to abide by the way of God – those who choose to abide by the way of the world – will be judged in the long run.  Ladies and gentlemen, we have to look at this psalm through the eyes of faith.  Because in this world, sometimes those who choose the way of the world are quite successful in this world.  We have to believe that someone – somewhere – is keeping score.  We have to believe that there are eternal consequences for the choices we make on a daily basis. 

    The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life.  The question was, “What is the Jesus way and how do we go about following it?”  Perhaps we’ve just answered the second part of that question.  How do we go about following the Jesus way?  The Jesus way is, first and foremost, a choice.  It is a choice that – in the long run – will come to make all the difference in the world.  Thus, when we come to that proverbial fork in the road – and you know we will – we must come to choose the Jesus way.

    Allow me to literally prove to you the difference the Jesus way can make in the world in which we live.  Byron Johnson is the author of a book entitled, More God, Less Crime.  In it, he compiled a survey of every study conducted between the years 1944 and 2010 that measured the possible effect of religion on crime. Literally 90% of those studies revealed that more religiosity resulted in less crime.  Believe it or not, however, 2% of those studies actually found that religion produced more crime.  (I’d guess there was some kind of surveyor bias there.)  And 8% of the studies found that there was no relationship either way.

    Richard Freeman, a Harvard professor of economics, interviewed 2,358 young men living in downtown Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia.  He found that religious behavior was associated with substantial differences in how young men behave. More churchgoing resulted in less crime, less alcohol, and fewer drugs.  So I ask you now, “Does the Jesus way matter?”  It would appear that it does indeed.

    So if following the Jesus way is a choice, perhaps we now need to take a look at what the Jesus way really is.  As this is only sermon number two in a series, I am not prepared to give   you the definitive answer right now. Yet perhaps I can lay a good foundation.  Let me start by saying that the Jesus way is more about the way we live than it is about rules and regulations.             

    If you look at chapter 20 in the Old Testament book of Exodus, you will find what we call the Ten Commandments.  You’ll find a lot more rules and regulations in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.  In fact, if you were to read what the Jewish people call the Torah, you would find 613 separate laws of conduct.  God gave the Hebrew people a set of laws with which to conduct themselves, but somehow they failed to produce the results God desired.

    That’s why God sent his Son.  As Christians, we believe Jesus Christ is the revelation of God.  In other words, what we know to be true of Jesus, we know to be true of God.  Yet Jesus didn’t give us a list of rules and regulations to follow, did he?  Jesus simply lived his life in accordance with God’s plan, thereby revealing the way for us to live as well.  Perhaps that’s what the Jesus way really is.  The Jesus way is a life lived in harmony with God.

    The Jesus way is a life lived in harmony with God.  I think Eugene Peterson gives us a marvelous illustration of that in his book, The Jesus Way.  He writes:

Years ago I was traveling along a spectacular mountain road with an old college friend who was visiting from Texas.  This road is one of the scenic wonders of North America.  My friend had a map open on her knees.  I kept pointing out features in the landscape around us: a five-hundred foot waterfall, a glacial formation, a grove of massive Western Red Cedars, a distant horizon of mountains upon which a storm was forming. 

 

She rarely looked up.  She was studying the map.  When I, with some impatience, tried to get her attention, she told me that she wanted to “know where we are.”  And knowing where we are, for her, was defined by a line on a map.  She preferred the abstraction of a road map to the actual colors and forms, the scent and texture of Mount Reynolds, the roar of Logan Creek, or an alpine meadow on the way to Piegan Pass, luxurious in bear grass.     

    Perhaps the Jesus way is more than rules and regulations or a line on a map.  Perhaps the Jesus way has to do with being present to everything on the way: the sights and the sounds, the beauty and the elegance, the friendships and the relationships.  Perhaps the Jesus way cannot be codified or simplified or summarized.  Perhaps the Jesus way must simply be lived.

    Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Roman Catholic.  She once said, “All the way to heaven is heaven, because Jesus said, ‘I am the way.’”  Perhaps we, too, will find the Jesus way when we start to realize that all the way to heaven is heaven as well.  Amen.

 

5-15-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

THE WAY: PART I

    The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life.  That’s a line similar to one Eugene Peterson uses in his book, The Jesus Way.  What Peterson actually says is this: “The Jesus way wedded to the Jesus truth brings about the Jesus life,” but I like my wording better.  The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life. The question now is: What is the Jesus way, what is the Jesus truth, what is the Jesus life…and how do we get there?

    Once upon a time, a man dreamed that he died and he was met at the Pearly Gates by none other than St. Peter himself.  St. Peter said to the man, “Welcome to the kingdom of heaven.  Would you like me to show you around?” The man replied, “Oh, I’d like that more than anything else in the world.”

    As St. Peter began to show the man around, he was surprised to discover that the kingdom of heaven was like a long hallway with an unending series of doors. As the two of them approached the first door, the man heard beautiful singing.  The man said, “What’s behind that door?”  St. Peter replied, “Oh, that’s the Methodists. They just love to sing.” As the two of them approached the second door, the man heard fiery preaching.  The man said, “What’s behind that door?”  St. Peter replied, “That would be the Baptists.  You know how they love their fire and brimstone.”

    As they approached the third door, St. Peter stopped the man and said, “Shh.  We have to be very quiet as we go past this door.”  The man said, “Why is that?”  St. Peter replied, “Because behind this door are the Presbyterians.  They think they’re the only ones here.”

    Now of course, Presbyterians don’t really believe that, but it’s always safer for me to make us the brunt of the joke rather than to pick on someone else.  Yet the fact of the matter is, there are some Christian denominations who truly believe that they’re the only ones who are going to end up in heaven. Why do they believe that?  They believe that because they have somehow come to accept the fact that they have cornered the market on truth.  In other words, if you don’t believe exactly as they believe – and speak the exact same religious platitudes they speak – then in their minds, they are right, you are wrong, and you’re not going to make it to the kingdom of heaven.  Personally, I’ve always liked C.S. Lewis’ take on that.  He once said, “When we get to heaven,   I think we’re going to be very surprised by some of the people we see…and I think we’re also going to be surprised by some of the people we don’t.”  Now there’s some food for thought.

    Jesus seems to address this issue in the passage we read from the gospel according to John.  The context of our passage is an upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus is sharing his last supper with his disciples shortly before his arrest and crucifixion.  Prior to their departure to the Garden of Gethsemane, he shares some words of wisdom with them. He tries to tell them of how soon he will be leaving them, yet somehow they fail to understand just exactly what he means.

    Jesus says, “In my Father’s house there are many rooms.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.”  Then he adds, “And you know the way where I am going.”  Thomas, of Doubting Thomas fame, quickly replies, “Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”  Jesus then utters some of the most profound words in all of Scripture: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father…but by me.” 

    Why, it’s almost as if Jesus says it himself: The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life.  In other words, the Jesus life is not found by cornering the market on the Jesus truth alone.  One must also follow the Jesus way.  It’s the Jesus way PLUS the Jesus truth that equals the Jesus life, and therein lies our problem. We seem to have lost sight of the Jesus way. We are quite well-versed on the American way, but we seem to have lost sight of the Jesus way.

    The curricula of the American way is designed to help us get ahead in whatever field of work we find ourselves – be it sales, politics, business, or even church.  We take courses that instruct us in skills and principals that we are told are foundational for success, and then we are taught how to use those skills and principals to get what we want out of life.  We seek to embrace the methods and techniques of successful people, who then write books and give lectures telling us how we can do what they are doing if only we follow all the right steps. Of course, this all plays right into our consumer mentality.  And it all works wonderfully, as long as getting ahead and achieving worldly success are our ultimate goals. But that’s not the Jesus way.  That’s the way of the world.  And the way of the world is often in direct contrast with the Jesus way.  Eugene Peterson has an interesting take on the contrast between the way of the world and the Jesus way.  He writes:

To take a person trained in ways and means that are custom-formulated to fit into the world’s ways, and then place that person in the worshipping, evangelizing, witnessing, reconciling, peace-making, justice-advocating people of God, is equivalent to putting an adolescent whose sole qualifications consist of a fascination with speed, the ability to step on the accelerator, and expertise in operating the radio, behind the wheel of a brand-new Porsche.

    Any of you who have ever had teenagers know exactly what Peterson means.  In fact, I know of two fathers in Meadville who did just that.  One put his sixteen-year-old son behind the wheel of a brand new Mustang G.T., and the other put his sixteen-year-old son on the back of what we call a crotch rocket motorcycle. Guess what? Both boys ended up in the hospital after high-speed accidents, and both are lucky to be alive today.  Just as you can’t put a sixteen-year-old boy behind the wheel of an incredibly fast car or a high speed motorcycle, you can’t expect a person equipped in the ways of the world to be proficient in the way of Jesus. We need to learn, as Jesus says time and time again, to repent.  To repent is to have a change of heart or to have a change of mind.  It has to do with reversing our current direction. It has to do with a radically different way of life.

    The Jesus way plus the Jesus truth equals the Jesus life.  To find the Jesus life entails more than having a handle on the Jesus truth.  It also demands that we follow the Jesus way.  That’s where we seem to come up short, and that’s what we’re going to be exploring over the course of the next few weeks.  We’re going to be seeking the Jesus way.  It may not be easy.  It may even require some sacrifice or some change in the way we live our lives, but I think it’s worth exploring, just the same. 

    From the time of Abraham to the time of Jesus Christ, the Hebrew people – our ancestors in the faith – lived in proximity to a succession of some of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known.  There was Sumeria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Greece and Rome.  Their leaders stand tall in the Leadership Hall of Fame: Hammurabi, Ramses, Tiglath-Pilesar III, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander the Great, and even Caesar Augustus.

    But think about this.  For many centuries, with all of this empire-building going on around them, the Hebrew people kept to their own ways and maintained a unique counterculture.  It   was a unique counterculture in terms of the way they worshipped God and the way they lived their lives.  Ultimately, however, they wanted to be like everyone else.  They wanted to have a king of their own.  Finally, God acquiesced.  The prophet Samuel was called to anoint Saul to be the first king over Israel. Then David became king. Then Solomon became king. Then it all fell apart over the course of the next five hundred years. When all was said and done there were no more kings over Israel.  In fact, there was no more kingdom of Israel at all.  And it was all because they abandoned their unique counterculture.  It was all because they came to neglect   the way of God. 

    Then Jesus came and showed the world how to live in what he called the kingdom of God.  That’s what we need to recover. That’s what we need to rediscover. As Christians, we need to become a unique counterculture once again.  We should be different than the world around us.  We should have alternative priorities. We should seek to live the Jesus life by encountering the Jesus truth and following the Jesus way.  Perhaps then people will see us and say of us as they said of Christians some eighteen hundred years ago, “See how these Christians love one another, while we ourselves are ready to kill one another.”  Do you see the difference?

    While I cannot give you a definitive description of the Jesus way in the time we have left this morning, perhaps I can give you a glimpse into what a part of it might look like.  Many years ago, there was a minister and his wife who had two sons and a daughter.  The minister and his wife loved their family and they loved their congregation.  Then one of the couple’s boys was killed in a tragic shooting accident. 

    The minister and his wife were devastated beyond belief.  Yet when they came to the church that night, nearly half the congregation was in the fellowship hall to offer all the love and support they could.  Love and support in a time of desperate need: That, my friends, is the church being the church.  And that, my friends, is what the Jesus way looks like. 

    Over the course of the next few weeks, we’re going to be examining how we can approach   the way of Jesus on a more frequent and regular basis.  I invite you to come along for the ride.  Amen.   

 

5-01-2011 Sermon by The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen

GOD IN RETROSPECT

    “What does it feel like to die?”  That’s a question I was asked a number of years ago and the woman who asked it had every right – and every reason – to ask it.  In the course of a few short years she lost her husband, and then she lost her only son.  So she asked me, “What does it feel like to die?”

    I can honestly say that in all my years of schooling, I have never encountered a scholarly answer to that question.  Ask me about the soteriological aspects of the doctrine of the atonement or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin – those questions I can answer, or at least pretend to – but, “What does it feel like to die?”  That’s a tough one.  I mean, not many books have been written by authors who’ve experienced death themselves.

    Thus, I had no biblically-based, theologian-backed answer. So I told her a story I encountered   a long time ago.  I read it in one of Peter Marshall’s sermons, in a book published by his widow, Catherine.  The book is entitled, A Man Called Peter.  The story goes like this:

Once upon a time, a little boy was suffering with leukemia. Death was imminent and the boy was well aware of it.  It was almost as if he could feel the life slipping away   from his tired, little body.  One evening, while sitting alone with his mother, he asked her, “Mommy, does it hurt to die?”  His mother was completely taken aback with the question and quickly averted her eyes to choke back her tears.  She thought about the question for a moment or two, and then she turned back to her sick little boy. 

 

She said, “Do you know how sometimes, late at night, you fall asleep on the couch between your father and me?”  The little boy said, “Yes.”  His mother added, “After you fall asleep, your father lifts you into his arms, gently carries you upstairs, and puts you into bed.  Then the next morning, you wake up in your own bed…only you don’t know how you got there.  That’s what death is like, I think. You simply wake up and find that you’re in heaven with God.”

    What does it feel like to die?  It’s like you fall asleep and wake up somewhere else, only you don’t know how you got there.  You simply wake up – in heaven – with God.  That’s a powerful story, and one that gives us tremendous comfort, I think. It depicts a scenario we can profess and embrace because of what happened to Jesus Christ on that first Easter Sunday.  But what if we didn’t know the Easter story?  What if we were completely unaware of what we call the doctrine of the resurrection?  How would we deal with the prospect of death if we did not believe there is life after death?

    Such was the case with the two men we encountered in the passage we read from the gospel according to Luke.  It was a Sunday afternoon – Easter Sunday afternoon – and these two men were making the seven-mile trek from Jerusalem to Emmaus.  Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified the Friday before, and it was a devastating turn of events for everyone who was close to him.

    These two men – Simon and Cleopas were their names – were followers of Jesus Christ.  Perhaps they weren’t in the so-called inner circle, but they were close to Jesus just the same.

They may not have been numbered among the original twelve disciples, but they had been captivated by his message just the same.  Only now, he was gone.

    Now in those days, Judaism did have a remote idea of some kind of life after death, but that was only after some sort of far-off Judgment Day.  So for them, death was basically the end of things.  Three women – Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James – claimed to have seen Jesus alive, but to all concerned, it seemed to be nothing more than an idle tale.  The men simply would not listen to the women.  Of course, that would never happen today!

    So here we are, with Simon and Cleopas, making the long and arduous journey to Emmaus.  They’re discussing the events of the past few days, trying to make some kind of sense of it all, when suddenly they’re joined by a third man.  This third man is Jesus, but as our passage says, somehow, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”

    The mysterious stranger said to Simon and Cleopas, “What is this conversation which you   are holding with each other as you walk?”  And they stood still, looking sad.  Cleopas said to him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”  And he said to them, “What things?”

    They went on to explain all the events that had transpired.  Surely they spoke of Jesus’ triumphal ride into Jerusalem, his cleansing of the Temple, his confounding of the Pharisees, and his Last Supper with his disciples.  Then they likely spoke of his brutal crucifixion, and how some of their own company now said that he was alive.

    The stranger said, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!  Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?”  Then Jesus – as yet unknown to Simon and Cleopas – spoke of how Old Testament prophets had foretold all these things.  And as they listened, their hearts burned within them.

    Finally, they arrived in Emmaus. The third man appeared to be going further, but Simon and Cleopas constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is on toward evening and the day is now far spent.” I believe this seemingly insignificant turn of events holds a profound message for us.  Had Jesus not been invited inside, he would have kept right on going.  Ladies and gentlemen, Jesus walks with us as well…and he will keep right on going unless we take the time to invite him inside.

    I think of how Jean Vanier describes his L’Arche community, a ministry to the mentally handicapped.  (Pardon my French, but I’m doing the best I can.)  In any case, Vanier describes his ministry this way. What would happen if you held a wounded bird in your hands and you closed your hands together?  The answer is, the bird would be crushed or suffocated.  And what would happen if you held that wounded bird in flat, open hands? The answer is, the bird would fly away or fall to its death.

    But what would happen if you held that bird in cupped hands?  There the bird would be nurtured until it was well.  Vanier believes that that’s the way God holds us.  He does not close his hands together such that we be crushed or suffocated.  He does not hold his hands flat such that we might fall to our death.  Instead, God cups his hands to hold us. We can still fly away, or we can rest in God’s hands and be nurtured.  In a way, I think that’s what our passage is trying to   say to us.  If we want God to hold us, then we must invite him to do so.  If we want the Christ to be with us, then we must take the time to invite him inside.

    Once inside, Simon and Cleopas and the unknown stranger sat down to dinner.  Then the stranger took bread in a strangely familiar way.  Then he blessed it and broke it in a strangely familiar way. Suddenly their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus! Then as quickly as he had been recognized, he vanished out of their sight.

    Simon and Cleopas said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he walked with us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”  This day had probably been about the lowest point in the lives of Simon and Cleopas.  Yet suddenly Simon and Cleopas realized that – at the lowest point in their lives – Jesus had been with them all along. Jesus had been with them all along, yet they had not recognized him.  They did not realize that Jesus had been with them until they looked back on their trying times. 

    How often the same is true for us.  It is not until we look back on the trying times in our lives that we come to realize that God was with us every step of the way. Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps we could even say that we see God in retrospect.  We see God when we look back on the troubled times in our lives and come to realize that God was with us all along.

    I think of a famous story by an unknown author entitled, “Footprints.”  You know the story.  A man dreamed one night that he died and he stood before the throne of God.  The scenes of his life were laid out before him and they appeared as two sets of footprints in the sand. One set of footprints belonged to God, the other set of footprints belonged to him.  Then he noticed that at the most troubling times in his life, there was but one set of footprints in the sand.  He said to God, “Lord, you promised me that you would never forsake me; that you would never leave me alone.  Why is it, then, that at the most distressing times of my life, there is but one set of footprints in the sand?”

    To which God replied, “My precious, precious child.  I love you and I would never leave you alone. The single set of footprints in the sand you see…are the times I carried you.” We see God in retrospect. We see God when we look back on troubled times in our lives and realize that God was with us all along.

    Speaking of seeing the footprints of God, listen to this.  A hospice physician in Denver, Colorado was heading home from work at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon in January.  It was rush hour and he was driving down Colorado Boulevard, and the traffic was unbearable. Then suddenly, his nearly new car just died.  He managed to coast into the parking lot of a convenience store. He found himself cursing his apparent bad luck but he was thankful that at least he wasn’t blocking traffic on Colorado Boulevard.  He pulled out his cell phone, called a tow truck, and settled in to wait.

    He noticed a young woman walking out of the convenience store with a couple of small bags   in her hands.  Suddenly, she slipped on the ice and appeared to hit her head on a gas pump.  Naturally, the physician got out of his car to see if she was all right.  As he helped her to her feet, he noticed that she had dropped something.  He quickly picked it up and handed it to her.  It was a nickel.

    Then he noticed that she had only put $4.95 of gas into a rusty old Suburban.  Today that would buy you, what?  A little more than a gallon of gasoline?  Anyway, inside that rusty old Suburban he saw three children – one of them still in a car seat.  The woman said, “Please.  I don’t want my children to see me cry.”  The two of them then stepped to the other side of the   gas pump. 

    The woman began to tell her sad story.  She was from Kansas City, and her boyfriend had walked out on her and the children. She called her parents in California, with whom she had    not spoken in five years, and they invited her to come and stay with them until she could get back on her feet.  Then the doctor asked the woman, “Were you praying?”

    The woman stepped back a couple of steps and looked at him like he was a nut.  The doctor said, “I’m not a fanatic. I just want to help.” Then he swiped his credit card at the gas pump and gave her a full tank of gas.  He went into a McDonald’s next door and bought three big bags of food.  The kids tore into it like ravenous wolves.  The woman looked at the man and said, “Are you an angel?”  The doctor said, “No.  Sometimes God just sends ordinary people to do his bidding.”

    He sent the woman and her kids on their way with a full tank of gas and full stomachs. Then the doctor went back to his car and – just for the heck of it – put the key into the ignition and turned it.  Miracle of miracles, the car started right up and the doctor drove home.  Looking back on that situation, the doctor believed he had seen the footprints of God. 

    We see God in retrospect.  We see God when we look back on troubled times in our lives and realize that he was there all along.   Take the time to look back on some of the troubled times in your own life.  Then ask yourself, “What do I see?  What do I really see?”  Amen.